Although certainly not one of the “hate-tech” band, as a lifelong school teacher, I’ve witnessed a plethora of negatives associated with the undeniable ed-tech’ification and privatization of modern education.
It’s no longer fearing “the machine in the garden” (Leo Marx) but rather fearing for a garden vanishing in our algorithm-driven machine-society where we amuse ourselves to death (Neil Postman).
When one manages to scurry off to our Los Padres National Forest near the San Rafael Wilderness, they may suss out hidden niches like Fir Canyon where white noise is merely a sad memory, native fragrances abound, bird cries resound, the creek flows with visible tiny fishes, and we’re unable to connect with the Internet using any of our devices.
Gal Beckerman writes about social media and the Internet in his new book, “The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas”:
“[the Internet] is where we live our lives in the 21st century.
It has almost completely annihilated all those other forms of
[human] communication.”
While readers may not completely agree, imagine a 10- or 12-year-old child’s life circumscribed by suffocating tech devices where you’re always alone and seldom together. We endure a loss of common rituals and symbols.
Rather than a feeling that I’m fleeing from the city, I’ve actively chosen a five-sensory immersion in a beckoning wilderness available in nearby Los Padres National Forest. After parking at trusty Davy Brown Camp at 7:15 a.m., we walk down to the lowest campsites (all unused on a Tuesday in late May), then hop across flowing Davy Brown Creek at the huge green cattle gate (now left open).
Fir Canyon with the Davy Brown Trail running through it meanders for a while before a brutal ascent commences, bringing the hiker to Figueroa Mountain Road near Figueroa Mountain Camp (32 sites; no water). Along the way, I notice a number of downed trees across the overgrown path, but they’re easy to clamber over using my hiking sticks.
Fir Canyon is very rustic now and shows little signs of recent human use. Given that the access to Davy Brown and Nira camps had recently been closed for six months, one can easily discern how much the resurgent flora springs back with reduced human foot travel on this trail.
After happily ambling along the flowing creek for a mile or so, we encounter a trail choice marked by a fairly new iron sign thoughtfully provided by the U.S. Forest Service. It reads:
<— D A V Y B R O W N T R A I L
<— Figueroa Mountain Road
Willow Spring Trail —>
It then shows the return on the Davy Brown Trail running back down to Davy Brown Camp, where we started. The connector trail to the right brings hikers through dense foliage to the Willow Spring Jumble, which I described in February, and then finally over to the Catway Jeep Road. It can be confusing in here, and generally there is no water at so-called Willow Spring.
We observe two more large trees collapsed onto the Davy Brown Trail as Fir Canyon wends along Davy Brown Creek, which miraculously flows even during our long drought. While I would not drink this water without filtering, tiny fishes have survived and swim about desperately seeking sustenance (NB No Fishing).
Beckerman demonstrates convincingly what most of us already intuit: Internet digitally based communication has mostly obliterated face to face, radio, straight telephone and live public debate.
Authors Marx, Postman, Jaron Lanier and Beckerman concur that this change has led to the death of conversation (while some of us go bowling alone or stare into a bottle). Beckerman’s deeper point is how original (“radical”) ideas typically gestate in small-group interactions where “a self-selecting group retreats to a quieter, slower, more private and less performative sphere” to work out specific solutions and policies.
I think of Vladimir Lenin’s very tight group of Bolshevik revolutionaries in 1917, the founders of Students for a Democratic Society in late 1960s Michigan, or our reigning tech overlords today.
Beckerman mentions the “healthy friction” of the pre-digital forms of communication in contrast to the disgustingly performative aspects “and decidedly unhealthy friction of today’s social media world.” We’re ensconced in the society of the spectacle, one that derides honesty for absurd optimizations and outlandish lies.
By 11:30 a.m. in later May, the temperature had risen exponentially despite the narrow confines of Fir Canyon, and the gnats and flies began to zoom about in hysterical fury. My best option was to trek on and present a moving target for these blood-thirsty tiny beasts.
Although I turned back before the top at Figueroa Mountain Road, there was time to admire the vast expanse of humongous poison oak bushes rife with shiny leaves exuding the skin irritant. While quite beautiful and restorative all around, I did miss out on spotting any of the radiant tiger lilies that often pop up in mid spring here. Yet, there weren’t any other humans about either.
Those of us who have spent at least half of our lives in a less-frenetic analog world struggle to see how overwhelming the Internet, social media and conspiracy theses have become in the digital realm. Do our children have a right to an analog world-experience, too?
We can find solace hiking along an overgrown backcountry wilderness path like Fir Canyon’s Davy Brown Trail, or by allowing some thoughtful conversation with a friend or small band to develop, and either of these leads to rest, resilience and even a few new ideas.
4-1-1
» Directions: Drive Highway 101 north to the Chumash Highway (154) and turn right on Armour Ranch Road, then turn right again on Happy Canyon Road. Drive to one mile short of the dead end. That’s Davy Brown Camp. Park outside and avoid a $10 parking fee from Parks Management Co.
» Leo Marx, “The Machine in the Garden” (1964); Neil Postman, “Amusing Ourselves to Death — Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business” (1985); Jaron Lanier, “You Are Not a Gadget” (2012); Gal Beckerman, “The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas” (Penguin, 2022).
— Dan McCaslin is the author of Stone Anchors in Antiquity and has written extensively about the local backcountry. His latest book, Autobiography in the Anthropocene, is available at Lulu.com. He serves as an archaeological site steward for the U.S. Forest Service in Los Padres National Forest. He welcomes reader ideas for future Noozhawk columns, and can be reached at cazmania3@gmail.com. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
